On 2 Oct 2003 17:37:14 -0700, (Howard) wrote:

There are 4 connectors on the board. 2 are Port 0 & Port 1. These are connected
to the ICH5 (Intel chip) chip and there are 2 are connected to the SIL (I think
it is) chip. This is the one you can disable in hardware about 2/3's the way
down in the BIOS named ONBOARD SATA.

Can't really comment as I am having trouble getting mine working with 2 on the
Intel chip and installing XP on them but they obvious which is which after a few
goes.

This is getting rather confusing...I called tech support at the store
where I purchased the motherboard and asked about this and they said
if there is only one apparent SATA RAID control in the BIOS that you
can not use a RAID array on one of the two chips and not on the other.
However since I spoke with them I have read a review of the board
that says that you can and someone on another forum has told me that
you can as well. This is what I wrote back to him and I would
certainly apprciate anything you folks could do to help me sort this
out!:

I would like to run 2 SATA non-RAID discs and 2 in RAID 0 array.
Looking at the BIOS I can not understand how one would disable the
RAID controller on one of the two SATA chips and not the other.

The first related BIOS option appears to be "On-chip SATA" which will
let you manually configure SATA Port 0 and 1 and then comes "SATA RAID
function" which says it can 'enable SATA RAID function when SATA mode
set to SATA Port 0 & SATA Port 1 only (Default value)'. So I assume
by setting the above in the BIOS you can enable RAID on one of the
SATA chips....though I am unsure which of the 2 chips.

The problem is then that I don't see a similar BIOS control for the
second chip clearly marked. The only things in the BIOS instruction
manual that makes me think they might be the RAID controller for the
other chip are the following items:

"Onboard H/W SATA" that can 'enable or disable onboard SATA function'


"Serial ATA Function" which can 'set onboard SATA chip function as
RAID (default value) or base.

The other RAID settings refer to GIGARAID which is the IDE RAID
controller. In addition for this GIGARAID there are BIOS settings for
" GIGARAID Function" as well as "Onboard H/W GIGARAID to enable or
disable IDE RAID. So with two such controls for GIGARAID it confuses
me even more for what the H/W SATA means in that it might refer to the
earlier SATA RAID controller.

So, if you could help out with which SATA RAID controller goes to
which chip and how to separately turn the two RAID controllers on and
off, I would be very appreciative as I am holding offf on buying
drives until I understand if I can set them up the way I am
anticipating.

Thanks

Howard





I am getting an 8KNXP motherboard which has the Intel ICH5R
chip/controller as well as the SIL3112 chip/controller. I was
wondering if one was able to use 1 of the two chips to run 2 HD in a
non-RAID situation and set the other chip to run 2 RAID 0 drives.
Looking at the manual for the board and BIOS (I have ordered but not
yet received the board and downloaded the manual) it seems like the
BIOS has only one SATA RAID enable or disable function. Does that
mean that one can not do what I propose above?? If not, does that
mean that with SATA RAID enabled and 4 HD you need to have either a
RAID 0/1 array or two RAID 0 arrays?? If one can not have two
non-RAID and two RAID SATA drives can you have 2 PATA non-RAID drives
in combination with a SATA RAID 0 array? This is a bit confusing and
I can't seem to ferret it out with the downloaded motherboard manual
that I have and am trying to figure out what HD to purchase for the
system I want to build.

Thanks.
Howard